Ray Allen moves to the Heat!

The NBA’s leading all time 3 point shooter Ray Allen has shunned the Celtics in hope of a title in South Beach!
And the future Hall of Famer even gets to keep his number, with Heat owner Mickey Arison posting a tweet saying ‘It’s 2:30 a.m. in London and I was just woken up with great news: Welcome to the family, #20!!’
This is a huge signing for the Miami team, with Ray Allen being the best bench point guard in the NBA.
The Heat needed someone who could consistently shoot from the arc, with D-Wade and LeBron both patchy from that range, and they’ve got their man. Ray Allen.

Last year, with the Celtics, Ray Allen started in 42 of the 46 regular season, but in the playoffs, only started in half the Boston sides games. This showed that Allen was falling out of favour with the Celtics faithful, whilst Avery Bradley took his opportunity with both hands. The Celtics were willing to offer Allen $12 million over a period of two years, a contract that would have paid him twice the money offered by Miami over the same period. But clearly the popular shooting guard wanted the lure of a possible title over the money.

The ten time NBA all-star adds much needed depth to a Miami list struggling in that department, with the team too reliant on the big three of James, Wade and Bosh. Now, with the experience of Allen added to that, will hopefully help young Miami players such as Terrel Harris, Norris Cole and even Mario Chalmers have a greater input in games.

Just a week after the Celtics resigned Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo, it was expected that Ray Allen would also sign, to continue the ‘Big 4′ of Boston, but he declined to resign, and now gives the Heat a possible ‘Big 4,’ with James, Wade, Bosh and Allen, possibly forming a formidable partnership. This skyrockets the Heat into even hotter favourites than they already were, and with Oklahoma City having made no huge moves in this off-season, the Heat are looking good.

This is, as a result, a sour end to his marvelous five-year career in Boston, resulting in the 2008 NBA title. But many questions remain unanswered including: Does he now want a second ring badly enough to join the team that eliminated the Boston franchise twice in a row in the playoffs? or Is there something deeper that has made him move?

There is one thing for sure though, this trade has put a lot of questions up about the management at Boston and has catapulted the Heat to being the team to beat.